What is bad poetry? - Page 2
© Kayt Davies
What muddies this assumption is that language shape shifts, and with Gen-Xers being so fond of clumping into subcultures with their own clique-ey lingos, it’s hard to catch an evasive insight without using words with meanings coloured by particular geographic and temporal settings. Basically what a poet means by a line may only really make sense to themselves or to the select few others sharing their own mini subculture.
Good poetry in this sense, is poetry that uses words and phrases that can be understood by larger subculture groups and that perhaps includes echoes of the meaning of those words in its structure and sound.
So, in conclusion, trying to define bad poetry, I posit that it’s poetry that hasn’t got mass media entertainment appeal and isn’t an expression of anyone’s inner world. Or it is poetry that’s so unintelligible that not even the writer gets any insight after reading it. Or if it does get shown to others, that it’s so full of personal jargon that no one else understands it.
It’s a broad generalisation but it leaves room for a huge amount of variation in the definition of good poetry.
Kayt Davies is a journalist and editor with a psych degree and a recently completed MA Phil in Greek mythology.
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